Medication dispensing cabinets have been developed to store and controllably dispense a variety of medications. A medication dispensing cabinet may include a cabinet body with one or more drawers that are slideably disposed within the cabinet body. The drawers store the various medications. While some of the drawers may be unlatched and freely openable, other drawers may be locked in order to more closely control access to the medications stored in the locked drawers.
Some medication dispensing cabinets are automated and, as such, include or are otherwise associated with a computer that controls access to the medication stored within the cabinet. The computer may allow access to only authorized users, such as medical providers who work in the unit in which the medication dispensing cabinet is located. Once authorized by the computer, a medical provider may identify a particular medication to be dispensed, such as by reference to the medications prescribed to a respective patient to whom the medical provider is attending. The computer may then unlock the respective drawer in which the particular medication is stored so as to provide access to the medication.
The amount of time it takes for the medical provider to interact with the computer and access the respective drawer can vary based on the type of medication dispensing cabinets and their computer control systems. While medication dispensing cabinets are an important tool in loss prevention of narcotics as well as in providing the proper medication to each patient, any time spent interacting with the medication dispensing cabinets is time that the medical providers cannot be with their patients. Moreover, lines of medical providers sometimes form at the medication dispensing cabinets further reducing medical providers' time with patients.
Furthermore, with the industry's current trend to move more medications to the nursing floor (from centralized pharmacies), the average number of medications being removed from a medication dispensing cabinet for a patient on a typical morning has increased from two (typically “as needed” pain medications) to twelve (typically all oral and/or injectable medications prescribed for a patient). As a result, there is an increasing risk that medical providers may miss medications when scanning through the patient orders to select the medications to be dispensed.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved system and method for dispensing medication that allows healthcare professionals to dispense medication for the patients under their care in a more rapid, efficient, and accurate manner.